FIFA 13 Tips | Dribbling

Football journalist and FIFA fan Darren Cross looks at five great dribbling moves that will get you past your marker in FIFA 13…

Football journalist and FIFA fan Darren Cross looks at five great dribbling moves that will get you past your marker in FIFA 13…

At some stage in a game of FIFA you’re going to need to dribble past an opponent.

Whether you prefer a slow passing game, fast counter-attacks or any other style of play, there will be a point when you’ll have to beat a player with a dribble to progress with the attack. You may have the ball on the wing and need to get by a defender to make space for a cross, you could have a final opponent to take on for a free run on goal, or you might need to go around the keeper from a one-on-one. There are loads of situations where being good with the ball at your feet can be the difference between scoring or not, so it’s important to be pretty decent at it and to have a few moves that could give you the edge.

With that in mind, in this week’s Backpage we’re going to look at five dribbling techniques I use regularly when I need to get past a defender, starting with…

Face-Up Dribble Delay
The face-up dribble function gives you the freedom and control to move quickly and precisely with the ball at your feet, which makes it difficult for the defending player to predict what you will do next. There are loads of ways you can get past an opponent with it, but one of my favourite techniques is to use face-up dribbling to momentarily slow my player and delay him just enough to let an incoming opponent pass him by.

Picture a situation where you’re running towards your opponent’s goal with the ball at your player’s feet and you have a defender sprinting into his path, anticipating your run and looking to intercept. If you hold LT/L2 and RT/R2 then push the left stick in the direction the defender is running from just before he makes contact, you will slow from a sprint to a more precise dribble and – hopefully – throw the defender’s timing out enough for him to move past you. Then you can sprint into the space you’ve created and get away before he can turn and come back at you.

If you get the timing right it’s a move that works really well, especially against an opponent that likes to press the ball aggressively, and you can go for it in any situation where you’re being charged down as you effectively use the defender’s own momentum to get past him.

Burst Away
This is a great move for beating a defender when the play has already slowed down and you’re standing over the ball. I often get into positions like this out wide when I’ve advanced with a winger but don’t really have a target for the cross yet, so I’ll hold the play up until there’s a team-mate in the box to aim for then try to beat my marker with a burst away.

A burst away is when you invite the defender to come towards you to try to win the ball back then – just before they get to you – burst diagonally left or right. There are a couple of ways to do it but I like to hold LB or L1 while standing then push the left stick back, left and right repeatedly, which makes my player take a number of small touches to move the ball around his feet. This is usually enough to get the defender to charge in, then I hit the right stick diagonally left or right past them to push the ball into space.

As with the face-up delay, the burst away is all about timing because you’re using the opponent’s momentum against them, which highlights one of the most important things about defending – don’t go rushing in.

Stop And Go
This is one of my favourite dribbling moves because it’s really easy to do and opponents don’t usually expect it.

It simply involves running with the ball at your feet then coming to a complete stop just before the defender gets to you – which you can do by holding LB or L1 on its own – before sprinting off almost instantly in the direction you were going in the first place. The reason this works so well is that, when you stop, your opponent will usually stop too. They will then expect you to turn back or pass the ball away, so when you take off again in the direction you were going there isn’t time for them to react and you should have plenty of space to move into.

You can also use the right stick to push the ball away and quickly increase the distance between you and the defender.

Double Turn
This one works along the same lines as the stop and go, because it’s all about making the defender think you’re going to do one thing and getting them to move in anticipation of it, before actually doing something they weren’t expecting at all.

It’s best used out wide when you have a defender tracking you from a parallel position and you need to shake him off so you can get a cross in or head for the box yourself. All you do is allow your player to slow slightly by letting go of sprint, push the left stick in the opposite direction to the one you’re facing then push it back the way you were going.

Often the defending player reacts to the first turn and begins to edge around you as they anticipate your next move, but then gets left behind as you make the second turn. You only need a half-second to get enough space to make this one work, and it’s even more effective if you run across the path of the defender once you’ve got past him so that your body is between him and the ball.

Face-Up Dribble Spin
This dribbling move is perhaps the most complicated of the five we’re looking at here, but it’s fantastic for catching your opponent out and looks great when it works.

I go for this when I have my back to goal and a defender moving towards me. To start with I’ll hold LT or L2 to begin a slow dribble, which gives me lots of control over the ball, then – just before the defender gets within touching distance – I hold RT/R2 to turn it into a face-up dribble that spins my player in a 180. Next I quickly hit the right stick diagonally to the right or left of the incoming defender and, if the timing’s right, I should sprint away into space.

It can take a bit of practise but, because it’s so unexpected, it’s a really useful dribbling move to have in your locker because it pulls players out of position.

So they’re five of my favourite dribbling moves I use to beat a marker. If you have some dribbling tips of your own then please share them by commenting below or tweeting me @darren_cross

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week,

FIFA 13 is availble to buy now on Origin for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC.